NEWS in brief
Global Highlights
34 Million Without Water Access in Latin America experts
Latin America has to find water and energy solutions using
“a more holistic and a more pragmatic approach” in order to
achieve economic development and preserve the wellbeing
of its people, Campos said.
According to Miralles, with effective management of water
and hydroelectric dams, Latin America and the Caribbean
have the potential to export excess water and energy to
other parts of the world.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
Architecture of aquifers: Chile’s Atacama Desert
Only a Few Drops of Water
Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean must rein in
their thirsty agriculture sector to ensure water security, as
extreme weather takes a toll on the region’s growing cities,
experts said.
Agriculture accounts for 70 percent of global water use,
consuming more than industry and households, according
to the United Nations.
Although Latin America has one-third of the world’s
freshwater, 34 million people in the region do not have
access to the precious resource.
“If we’re going to fix something in the next 20 or 30 years,
(water use for agriculture) is what we need to look at,”
Fernando Miralles, director of the Cooperative Institute for
Climate and Satellites at the University of Maryland, said
during the World Water Week conference in Stockholm.
According to the U.N., demand for water is expected to
increase by 55 percent by 2050, mainly due to growing
urbanization in developing countries.
Over the same time period, Latin America’s population - 80
percent of which lives in cities - is forecast to reach 784
million.
“Water security for Latin America is a critical issue for the
economic development of our region,” said Sergio Campos
of the Inter-American Development Bank.
Extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and
hurricanes are becoming more frequent and intense,
affecting more than a dozen Latin American cities over the
last three years, Campos said.
Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and Panama City have already
experienced shortages of drinking water and electricity, and
increasing food prices.
“As the population grows, the situation will become even
worse over the coming years,” Campos said.
8
Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene • November - December 2015
The Loa River
water system of
northern Chile’s
Atacama Desert,
in the Antofagasta
region, exemplifies
the high stakes
involved in sustainable
management of scarce
water resources. The
Loa surface and
Chile’s Atacama Desert captured via
groundwater system
NASA’s Terra satellite.
supplies the great
NASA, USGS
majority of water
used in the region,
and meets much of
the municipal and agricultural demands.
It is vital to regional copper mining, which constitutes
~50% of Chile’s copper production, which in turn supplies
one-third of the world’s copper needs. However, a key
property of the Loa system is the scarcity of surface water.
The aridity of the region sharply restricts the number
of human inhabitants and the extent of native plants or
animals. However, under different climate states during the
past few millennia the water flux was greater than now; this
leads to great uncertainty in estimations of how much of
the current water flow is renewable versus fossil.
This study of the aquifers in the Calama Valley is
motivated by the challenge of sustainable long-term
management of the Loa coupled with the natural-human
resource system.
Authors Teresa Jordan and colleagues clarify the spatial
distribution of the Cenozoic sedimentary rocks with
properties favorable to function as aquifers and the
distribution of water through those rocks. Their results
identify where deeply buried aquifers likely exchange water
with shallow aquifers or discharge to the surface water
system.
Source: Geological Society of America